The present invention relates to fanciful designs and a drawing apparatus for producing them, particularly, but not exclusively for use by young persons. The drawing instrument produces a repetitive yet indexed series of patterns on a piece of paper, with the variety of patterns being infinitely variable. The present invention allows the user to first set up the drawing toy by adjusting various mechanical apparatus variables and then, by simply repeatedly turning a handle, a fanciful design consisting of a repetitive set of spaced-apart or indexed patterns is produced on a sheet of paper.
Drawing toys or instruments capable of producing an infinite variety of fanciful designs are relatively old in the art. These devices generally suffer from a variety of disadvantages. More specifically, the prior art drawing toys, in general, require that the user hold the drawing tool or pen nib in an aperture of a ring, disc or cam while simultaneously meshing the ring, disc or cam within a frame, another ring or a multi-lobed cam-shaped frame. The requirement for simultaneously holding the pen nib in the aperture and maintaining meshing engagement between the ring and the other apparatus element is relatively difficult and, without question, results in innumerable ruined drawings, especially when the drawing apparatus is used by small children with limited manual dexterity. It is, therefore, a specific object of the present invention to provide a drawing apparatus or toy which is capable of producing an infinite variety of repetitive yet indexed fanciful designs with manual dexterity being of limited importance. It is a further specific object of the present invention to have the drawing apparatus capable of being used even by the very smallest of children who can barely properly hold a writing instrument. All that is required, as will be more fully explained hereinafter, by the present invention, is the grasping of an upwardly extending handle and the repeated rotation of a driving wheel attached to the handle about the wheel's fixed rotational axis. Very small children, even if incapable of properly holding a writing or drawing instrument can, however, easily grasp a handle and cause it with its attached driving wheel to rotate about its fixed axis. Also, by taking the writing or drawing instrument "out" of the small child's hand, there is no chance for the child to write on the table top, walls or furniture. This, too, is clearly desirable. The present invention provides the ability to produce an infinite variety of designs which consist of repeated lines, either continuous or not, indexed with respect to one another. Clearly, this is extremely attractive to children and especially young children who previously either could not produce these drawings, ruined many drawings because of limited manual dexterity or produced the drawings only after great difficulty. Significantly, in addition, since it is no longer necessary to simultaneously hold the drawing tool or pen nib and maintain meshing engagement between the apertured disc or ring and the guiding frame or ring, ruined drawings will no longer occur. The present invention provides a drawing instrument which can produce an infinite variety of designs by simple manual rotation of a wheel.